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While having R apply Denting Blows was thematic and felt great as part of Vi's combo it was just waaaaay too powerful. Assuming the guy you ulted didn't have his team around to protect him R,AA,E,Q,AA,E was an almost guaranteed Double-Proc on W (with the last Q,AA,E all benefiting from the armor shred). Too much burst.

Sure, could have kept the stack on R. Combo would have felt great. In exchange would probably have had to nerf damage on W, E, and/or Q tremendously. Would have ended up making Vi more binary. Is my ult up? I burst you for all your life. Is it down? Looks like I have nothing to do since I need R to effectively combo.

While having R apply Denting Blows was thematic and felt great as part of Vi's combo it was just waaaaay too powerful. Assuming the guy you ulted didn't have his team around to protect him R,AA,E,Q,AA,E was an almost guaranteed Double-Proc on W (with the last Q,AA,E all benefiting from the armor shred). Too much burst.

Sure, could have kept the stack on R. Combo would have felt great. In exchange would probably have had to nerf damage on W, E, and/or Q tremendously. Would have ended up making Vi more binary. Is my ult up? I burst you for all your life. Is it down? Looks like I have nothing to do since I need R to effectively combo.

talking about binary characters...... yi feels that way when he doesn't have ult....

While having R apply Denting Blows was thematic and felt great as part of Vi's combo it was just waaaaay too powerful. Assuming the guy you ulted didn't have his team around to protect him R,AA,E,Q,AA,E was an almost guaranteed Double-Proc on W (with the last Q,AA,E all benefiting from the armor shred). Too much burst.

Sure, could have kept the stack on R. Combo would have felt great. In exchange would probably have had to nerf damage on W, E, and/or Q tremendously. Would have ended up making Vi more binary. Is my ult up? I burst you for all your life. Is it down? Looks like I have nothing to do since I need R to effectively combo.

How about if her denting blows required more than three stacks to get the full effect? Like 4 or 5 or something? Would that work?

Denting blows used to deal significantly more damage and stack to 4 back in development. The original intent was to create tension around getting that first proc. Q, AA, E gave three stacks; hard part was getting that 4th one.

So why did I end up switching to 3 stacks? Because while it was cool that Vi had to work for W proc #1, she could never really expect to get a 2nd proc. Q,AA, E, AA, E left her with no spells and only 1 stack of the passive. Getting those last 3 hits just wasn't feasible.

Had to ask myself which pattern would be better for Vi in the long run. 4 Stacks made the first proc difficult but the unlikeliness of getting a second proc encouraged a Talon like play pattern that was all about charging in, unloading the burst, and then running away because you had nothing to do until your spells were back up. 3 stacks made getting one proc easy, but it also encouraged Vi to commit harder to engagements and brawl for longer all for the chance of getting that second W.

So yeah, felt the second playstyle was closer to what Vi's character is about (getting in people's face and hitting them a ton) so I decided to go with 3 stacks.